Little Bigfoot, Big City

by Jennifer Weiner

  Her mother’s voice was tear-choked and tiny. “A b-b-burned village, I guess.”

  “A burned village is right. Think, Septima. Think of what would happen if she knew. Think what would happen to her. Think of what would happen to us.”

  “But it’s not right,” Septima moaned. “We kept ourselves safe. But what was the cost of it?” Millie could imagine her mother’s eyes getting wide, could see her hand holding Aunt Yetta’s tightly. “What does it matter if we’re safe, if we left her to pay the price?”

  “She is safe too.” Old Aunt Yetta’s tone indicated clearly that there was nothing more to say about this mysterious person—or was it a village?—that had her mother so worried.

  Septima wasn’t done. “There must be something,” she said. Her voice was bleak. And then she was crying again, and Millie could only hear words and broken phrases here and there, Old Aunt Yetta murmuring, “There, there,” and her mother repeating variations of “It’s all my fault.”

  Millie didn’t want to leave. She wanted to stay and listen, to try to puzzle out who the “she” might have been, and why it hurt her mother to see Millie growing up, and how saving a village could mean burning it. But she knew that if her mother caught her hanging around Old Aunt Yetta’s house with a stolen flask of potion in her pocket—or, worse, if she saw Millie furless—that would be the end of any hope she had for The Next Stage or, really, of ever leaving her bedroom until the start of Planting Season, when every Yare’s help, even little Florrie’s, was required. She checked her pocket to make sure the little flask of potion was still there, as her mother’s voice rose.

  “If only I could tell her I was sorry,” Septima said. Her voice was full of pain and guilt, and Millie wanted to run to her, to hug her and tell her that whatever she’d done couldn’t be all that bad. Then, maybe, she could find out what on earth her mother meant. Sorry to whom? Sorry for what? What could her mother, who’d never done anything to hurt anyone, who was always the first with a pot of soup or stew or fresh-made bread when someone was hurt or sick, who moved through the world so fearfully that it was as if even the rustling of the wind in the trees frightened her, possibly be so sorry for? She had sounded miserable. More than miserable. She sounded haunted.

  Millie pulled her hood up, then tightened its strings until only her eyes and the tip of her nose peeked out. Her bare hands were covered by thick woolen mittens (something else none of the other Yare required), her legs were thickened by two layers of leggings, plus her boots. Still, she could feel the sting as the wind worked its way through the wool and the cotton and blew against her bare skin. It was so strange. She felt bare, even though she was completely covered, exposed in a way she’d never been exposed before. Was this what it was like to be a No-Fur, to move through the world feeling naked and undefended? She shivered and wondered how long it would take for her fur to come back . . . and who her mother had been talking about.

  A mystery, Millie thought as she walked to the Lookout Tree with her mittened hands in her coat pockets and her hood cinched tight. She’d hidden Alice’s laptop under her bed, and she knew she should be taking advantage of her furlessness to finally record her audition, but she’d never felt less like singing in her entire life.

  Millie climbed the tree, the way she had a thousand times before. From her perch way up high, she could see the entire Yare village spread like a patchwork quilt beneath her, in squares of snowy white and dirt brown. There was her father at the edge of the forest, chopping wood, and there were Frederee and Tulip, gathering kindling, and there was little Florrie, building a snow fort. When the wind blew, it lifted the faint voices of the women who were quilting, loud enough for Millie to hear their chatter, or Esmerelda’s bleats. She could smell simmering apples, cooking with maple syrup and cinnamon that the Yare ordered on-the-line; could feel the bite of the wind on her cheeks (once, she’d had a scarf, but the other littlies had made so much fun of it—your borrowed beard, they’d called it—that Millie had refused to wear it).

  For the first time, she found herself thinking about Septima’s life and what her mother might have been like as a girl. Was she always scared, always timid, always terrified of the No-Furs? Had she loved anyone before Maximus, maybe a boy in her old village, which, Millie vaguely remembered hearing, was somewhere south and west of their encampment? What was it like for her, watching her husband venture off into the No-Fur world when it came time to do the Mailing or even drive the littlies for their Halloweening? And what on earth had she been talking about with Old Aunt Yetta? What person had she failed or left behind?

  A mystery, thought Millie again. A real, actual mystery, right here in the Yare’s village, where, usually, the only mysteries were things like Who Stole Frederee’s Pants off the Clothesline (answer: Millie) and Who Tried to Join the Standish Girl Scout Troop (answer: Millie) and Who Tried to Follow Maximus into the Forest When He Went to Do the Mailing (answer: Millie again).

  Small as she was, Millie thought with satisfaction, she was an expert at sneaking, at overhearing things, at tucking herself in small spaces or feigning sleep while her parents talked. She would listen. She would hide. She’d ask careful questions. She would try to figure out what her mother had been talking about, what Septima had done that she so desperately, mournfully regretted. Maybe she could even try to fix whatever it was, to make it come round right.

  NORMALLY, JEREMY BIGELOW CHERISHED EACH day of vacation, dreading the morning when school started up again. His brothers paid attention to their own activities. His parents paid attention to his brothers. None of the mean kids from school showed up to ask Jeremy if he was taking Sasquatch to the homecoming dance or if he’d seen a leprechaun underneath a four-leaf clover. Nobody cared if Jeremy wanted to watch TV all day long; or have popcorn for lunch; or spend all afternoon walking through the woods, looking for the Bigfoot he’d glimpsed when he was ten years old, the one who’d started him on his path.

  But ever since his misadventure in the forest and his subsequent appearance in the newspaper, not to mention his mother having her identity stolen and his dad spending all of his free time locked in his home office, getting ready for the tax audit, Jeremy found himself counting the days, then the hours, then even the minutes, until he’d be able to escape his mother’s reddened eyes and his father’s pacing and muttering. He couldn’t wait to get out of the house, to escape the way both of his brothers looked at him as if he were a quarterback who’d dropped the ball on his way to a game-winning touchdown, or he’d screwed up the last equation that would have solved the mystery of nuclear fusion.

  “Bye, Mom!” he called, shouldering his backpack and climbing aboard his bike. It was still cold out, the sky a dull gray, the air damp. The snowbanks that edged the lawns had grown a dirty crust of car exhaust and salt and sand, but the roads were clear. He was pedaling along, his head full of thoughts of the girl named Alice and whether the Experimental Center was back in session yet, when a dented and dirty white van pulled up alongside him.

  Jeremy had watched enough rated-R movies with his brothers to know that a beat-up-looking van cruising slowly beside a kid on a bike on an empty road never meant anything good.

  “Good morning, Jeremy,” the driver called. Jeremy gulped, thinking that, as bad as a van was, it was probably even worse when the driver knew your name.

  Jeremy pedaled faster. The van sped up.

  “I just want to talk to you,” said the man. “A little friendly conversation.” Jeremy’s legs pumped frantically, his breath burning in his throat. The van sped up again, keeping pace with him easily. Jeremy raised his head. If he could make it to the top of the hill, he could pop a wheelie and get his bike up and over the metal guardrail, then ride through maybe fifty yards of forest before hooking onto the old railroad tracks that the Standish Town Council had been talking about converting to a bike path since Jeremy was in kindergarten.

  “We have information,” the man was saying. “We can help you, Jeremy. That’s all w
e want.”

  Yeah, right, thought Jeremy. He was standing up now, slamming his feet down on the pedals, but he could tell that he was losing momentum. If these were the people who’d left that scary letter at Jo’s house, the ones responsible for his parents’ current misery, they weren’t trying to help. If these were the good guys, his dad wouldn’t keep getting pulled over by the police, and his mother’s credit cards would still be working. He inched up the hill, the van’s engine sounding like thunder in his ears, its motor taunting him while he blinked sweat out of his eyes, looking for the cutoff and the dull metal guardrail. He’d watched Ben jump over it a hundred times; had tried it a dozen times himself, each time raising his nerve and turning his front wheel away right before it was time to pull it up into the wheelie.

  But that had just been for fun. This time it mattered. Jeremy tried to pedal harder, but he wasn’t Ben, and he could already feel his bike slowing and wobbling. Gasping, his throat burning, the bike lurching from side to side while he pedaled as if there were a gun to his back, he cut his bike hard to the left, pumped his right leg, then his left, closing his eyes. When he felt his front tire kiss the guardrail, he shifted his weight backward, pulling up on the handlebars as hard as he could, praying for his bike to rise up high enough to clear the railing.

  For a second he thought he’d done it. He felt the handlebars lift; he felt the front tire rising. Then it was as if the world remembered that he wasn’t Ben or Noah; he was just Jeremy, plain old unremarkable, not-very-athletic Jeremy, and the rules of gravity still applied. His tire hit the guardrail. The bike came crashing down. Jeremy was tossed over the railing and onto the ground, bouncing and rolling, branches jabbing him, crusty snow scraping him, dirt and pine needles streaking his hands and his back.

  For a moment he just lay there panting, staring at the sky, and listening to the crash and clatter of his bike rolling down the hill. Probably the man in the van would kidnap him. That might actually come as a relief. He wouldn’t have to go home, where his parents were preoccupied and miserable, or back to school, where everyone treated him like a joke.

  Then the driver was standing above him, his wide body blotting out the sun. “That’s gonna leave a mark,” he said. He held out his hand. Jeremy ignored it.

  “Come on, Jeremy,” said the man, and pulled him to his feet. Jeremy hated the way his legs wobbled, hated the way his stupid eyes were filling with stupid tears, because the man sounded kind. His hand was big and warm and rough, and it gave Jeremy’s hand a brief squeeze before letting go. Jeremy brushed his bruised palms off on his ripped pants, walked himself to the van, opened the door, and climbed inside.

  From the outside, the van was nothing special, a battered old thing with a bashed-in left front fender and a cracked taillight, the kind of vehicle a plumber or electrician might drive. Inside, though . . . Jeremy looked around. He’d once seen a video about a billionaire’s private jet, and the interior had looked something like this. The floors were carpeted, the walls and even the ceiling were covered in swanky-looking padded leather, the color of coffee the way his mother drank it, with lots of cream. There were swiveling seats up front, and two more seats in the second row. Jeremy was in one seat, and the driver sat in the other. There was a small table between them, and polished wood desks that folded out of the backs of the front seats. Four screens hung from the ceiling, showing four different views of the town, including one of Jeremy’s school and one of—he peered closely to be sure—Jo’s house.

  “You’ve been watching us,” he said, feeling unease moving through his body and making his skin prickle. The man—tall, dark-haired, fit, and slender, with sunglasses over his eyes—nodded.

  “The two of you have been able to make more progress in tracking down Bigfoots in a single year than our entire agency has in the last decade.” The man made the gesture of doffing an invisible hat. “We’re impressed.”

  Jeremy felt himself flushing, pride briefly overwhelming his anger and his shame and fear. Up close, he could see the shadow of stubble beneath the man’s freshly shaved cheeks and a single scar, the kind chicken pox sometimes left behind, high on his left cheek. He smelled bracingly of aftershave and mouthwash, and he was chewing cinnamon-flavored gum. Jeremy could hear the snap, snap, snap of it and could see the man’s heavy jaw rotate. He watched as the man, whose dark glasses were still in place, pressed his fingers against the top of a cabinet built into the wall. Its lid lifted, and he reached inside and handed Jeremy a clean, warm towel.

  “Shower’s in the back, and I think I can find you some clean clothes,” he said.

  Jeremy reached out, feeling his fingers close around the terry cloth. The morning had started to take on the feel of a dream. “Who are you?” Jeremy asked. “Where are you from?”

  “I think you know that, son.”

  “The Department of Official Inquiry,” Jeremy said. He could recall the feel of those words underneath his fingers, on the letterhead Jo had found in her house, that strange, staring eye above them. “You guys left a letter for Jo. Inside her house.”

  “This is urgent business. We needed to make contact.”

  “You scared us,” said Jeremy, aware that he sounded like he was whining. “Why’d you do it that way? Why do you even care about—” He started to say “Bigfoots,” then changed his mind and gestured toward the forest. “Them?”

  He understood, of course, why he wanted to find a Bigfoot, but why was the government interested? Why did this man care enough to kidnap a kid? Because surely his parents would notice that he was gone. Maybe not right away, Jeremy thought, but at some point. Like maybe if one of his brothers got sick and needed a kidney.

  The corners of the man’s mouth gave the tiniest twitch. “Clean up,” he said. “Then we can talk.”

  “What about school?” asked Jeremy. When the man looked puzzled, he said, “I’m going to be tardy.”

  The skin at the corners of the man’s eyes crinkled. “I once defused a bomb wired to a car radio in under ninety seconds without the driver noticing. While the car was moving. I think I can get you out of seventh grade for the morning.”

  “Cool,” Jeremy said, before he could remember that he was talking to one of the bad guys. He bent his head—although the van’s ceilings were so high that he didn’t have to duck too much—and made his way to the back of the van, which seemed much larger than the exterior suggested, pulling an accordion-style door closed behind him. There was a stall shower, a toilet and a sink, and a neatly made single bed that folded up into the wall. Most of the space was filled by a desk piled high with papers and books, some of the same ones that Jo kept: A Bigfoot Hunter’s Journal and The Truth about the Yetis and Finding Hidden Creatures and Bigfoot: Truth or Myth? A topographical map of Standish, with colored pins dotting it, hung above the desk, along with other marked-up maps, one depicting the United States, the other the entire world. On top of that map was that eye logo and the words “oculo videt in abscondito,” the Latin words that Jo had told him meant “the hidden eye sees all.” Jeremy stared, and when he turned he saw the man looming behind him.

  “A lot of woods here.” The man had snuck up behind him, somehow, without Jeremy hearing. Behind the dark glasses, his face was expressionless. His jaw worked. The gum snapped. “Deeper than you’d think.” Not one single word sounded threatening by itself. The man could have just been making conversation, remarking on the size and depth of the woods that surrounded Standish, but Jeremy imagined he could hear what the man wasn’t saying: A boy could get lost in those woods, could be lost and never found.

  Jeremy gave a weak smile, and then hustled himself into the shower.

  Ten minutes later, Jeremy, toweled dry and dressed in a pair of borrowed sweatpants and a plain blue collared shirt, sat in one of the captain’s chairs, with the man in the other one. The man was sipping from a mug of coffee, and there was a mug of what smelled like hot chocolate on the table in front of the other chair. Jeremy picked it up, feeling the warm
th through the heavy ceramic. He lifted it to his mouth. Then he stopped.

  The man was watching him, and he must have guessed what Jeremy was thinking, because the skin around his eyes got crinkly again. It wasn’t quite a smile, but it still managed to convey amusement.

  “Here,” he said, reaching out his hand. Jeremy handed over the beverage, watching closely as the man took a swallow.

  “See?” he said. “No poison. I promise.”

  Jeremy thought that maybe the man could have calibrated the dosage, putting in enough poison to affect Jeremy without harming himself. Or he could have built up an immunity, taking tiny doses of the poison over the years, until he could swallow a gallon of it without any ill effect. Then he told himself he was being paranoid. After all, he had already been run off the road by a man in a van who’d been lurking around Standish for weeks, a man who’d been spying on him and his friend and threatening his family and could possibly be planning to kidnap him or worse.

  Except, ever since he’d pulled Jeremy up off the cold forest floor and walked him into the van, the man hadn’t done anything to keep him there. The doors didn’t seem to be locked, which meant that Jeremy could have snuck out the back door instead of taking a shower; he could have gone running down the road to school or to the police station and told everyone what had happened. And did kidnappers let you take showers and give you clean clothes and hot chocolate?

  The man was still looking at him with that amused expression. “Think about it,” he said. “If I wanted to hurt you, I could have done it about a dozen different ways by now.”

  Jeremy accepted his drink and took a deep swallow. It was warm and not too sweet, just the way he liked it.